


An Encyclopedic Matter

by crazyinjune



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, always with the poland, and poland, cameo by courfeyrac and his puns, enjolras and feuilly bond over encyclopedias
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 09:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1092314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazyinjune/pseuds/crazyinjune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras can't stop staring at the boy in the library reading Encyclopedia of Contemporary World Politics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Encyclopedic Matter

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Justice and His Tutor Week over on tumblr! 
> 
> Enjoy xx

He’s here again.

 

Enjolras cannot help stealing glances at the boy folded into a chair at the table next to him. He reads with an expression Enjolras can only ever recall seeing on Combeferre’s face—intense concentration coupled with intense fascination that is not so much reading the words as drinking them in, inhaling them as if they were precious as oxygen itself.

 

He’s been here every day for the past couple of weeks, this boy. Same chair, same time, same book (a  practically pristine library copy of _Encyclopedia of Contemporary World Politics_ , so different from the gilded but battered copy Enjolras has slipped from Combeferre’s bookshelf countless times.) But while Enjolras makes a habit of studying at the library after school for hours, this boy never stays for more than twenty or thirty minutes. Every day he comes in looking harried and weary, drops into the chair and begins to read, the hard lines furrowed in his forehead and around his mouth softening as he begins to relax.

 

It doesn’t last. Not long after Enjolras notes his arrival each day, the boy lets out a sigh and takes a bookmark out of a worn down backpack to mark his place, fingers trailing over the pages in regret as he shuts the book. He places it reverently back on a nearby shelf and leaves.

 

He’d make a good addition to Les Amis, Enjolras thinks, if his choice of reading material is an indication. It takes a good three days to decide whether or not to speak to this boy, to interrupt those precious few minutes he seems to have in his day, but he does it anyways.

 

“Good book.” Enjolras leans his side against the boy’s table one afternoon.

 

He looks up with a start, hair falling out of his face. “You think so?” the boy says. “I didn’t think anyone else read it.” He gives a little shrug, “Not exactly riveting to most people, is it?”

 

“Oh, it is to me,” Enjolras say eagerly, slipping into the empty chair next to the boy. “I find it all fascinating. Read this a couple times, actually, I’d love to chat about Poland or something.”

 

The boy laughs. Rough, and hiccupy, and sweet. “Poland is my favorite subject. Feuilly,” he says, holding out his hand. Long fingers, Enjolras notes. Nice hands, artist’s hands, slightly stained with paint or ink. “I’m Feuilly.”

 

“Enjolras.” They shake. Feuilly’s hand is calloused, but Enjolras likes the feeling of his grip all the same. “Can I ask you something, Feuilly?”

 

Feuilly shrugs. “If it’s about Lithuanian politics, I’m not there yet.”

 

“Why are you only ever here for twenty minutes a day?” It feels like a private subject, but Enjolras has been rabidly curious for weeks.

 

Feuilly leans back in his chair as he flips his bookmark between his fingers. It’s the first time Enjolras has gotten a closer look at the bookmark, and he can barely take his eyes off it. It’s a set of elaborately twisted wires, spiraling into each other to create a flat piece to press between pages. Each wire looks hand painted, and as the bookmark flies through Feuilly’s nimble fingers, it catches the light and shimmers and winks at Enjolras. It takes him a moment to realize Feuilly is speaking.

 

“I’m on break from work,” he says, bookmark still twirling. “There’s only so much time I get, you know? To relax. I mean twelve hours a day with my nose to the grindstone, I’d rather spend it here.”

 

“Twelve hours—” Enjolras frowns. “What about school?”

 

Feuilly won’t meet his eyes. “I dropped out. I work as an assistant in that art studio five doors down. Couldn’t afford to...not have a full time job. This,” he says, drumming his fingers on the book, “this is my education now.”

 

“You could check it out, you know. The encyclopedia. That’s what libraries are for.”

 

This time, Feuilly’s laugh is tinged with bitterness. “No, I can’t. I ran into some overdue fees I couldn’t pay last year. Got my library card revoked.”

 

“Oh.” Enjolras struggles with how to respond. “That….that’s awful.”

 

“I make do.” Feuilly checks his watch. “Speaking of having to make due, my break is over in four and a half minutes.” He puts his beautiful bookmark in the encyclopedia. “Guess I’ll see you around then, Enjolras.”

 

He is turning to go when Enjolras starts up, nearly knocking down the flimsy library chair. “Feuilly, wait!”

 

“Yeah?” Feuilly half turns towards him.

 

“I actually run an activism club...we’re not..affiliated with the school so I’d love it if you, uh, popped by a meeting or two soon. We meet on Thursdays? At six?” It’s a strange feeling, being tongue tied. But for some reason Feuilly does that to him.

 

Feuilly’s face falls. “I have work then, Enjolras. I’m really sorry.” He swings his backpack over his shoulders. “See you.”

 

Enjolras is left staring at the shelved encyclopedia, with the bookmark  sticking out.

 

———

“Enjolras? Enjolras.”

 

“Hmmm?”

 

“Why are you staring at Combeferre’s bookshelf?”

 

They are sprawled out in Combeferre’s room, Enjolras writing Courfeyrac’s environmental science paper while Courfeyrac tackles Enjolras’s calculus homework. (“This paper is _fracking_ ridiculous,” Courfeyrac had pronounced minutes earlier. Enjolras dissolved into an undignified fit of giggles and traded homework while Combeferre sighed deeply and left the room.)

 

“I am not staring at his bookshelf—”

 

“You are so staring at his bookshelf.”

 

“Enjolras, why are you staring at my bookshelf?” Combeferre is back, crunching on an apple as he leans against the back of Enjolras’s chair. “You are not allowed to make anymore environmental science puns,” he says severely to Courfeyrac.

 

“But I’m so punn—” Courfeyrac is cut off as the apple hits him in the head.

 

“Can I borrow your contemporary politics encyclopedia, Combeferre?” Enjolras quickly asks before losing his nerve.

 

Combeferre arches an eyebrow. “Are you feeling okay?” He touches the back of his hand to Enjolras’s forehead.

 

“Yes?”

 

“Of course you can borrow it, but Enjolras, you haven’t _asked_ to take my books since _Harry Potter_ when we were nine.”

 

“Those were mine,” says Courfeyrac through a mouthful of Combeferre’s apple.

 

Combeferre laughs. “The point stands.”

 

“I don’t want to borrow it...for me.” Enjolras is fidgeting now.

 

Combeferre’s eyebrow climbs higher. “You want to borrow my book...for someone else”

 

Enjolras exhales through pursed lips. “Pretty much.”

 

“Well, have at it.” Combeferre takes a bite of apple from Courfeyrac’s outstretched hand and settles on the floor with his laptop. “Who am I to begrudge anyone from broadening political horizons.”

 

———

 

He places Combeferre’s encyclopedia right next to the library copy on the shelf, but with a note bearing Feuilly’s name tacked onto the spine. _My friend Combeferre practically considers it his civic duty to get people to read books he likes_ , Enjolras had scrawled on the inside of the note. _Keep it for as long as you’d like. At least until you get to Lithuania._  He makes sure to have slipped away by the time he knows Feuilly will be in the library. The next day, the library copy is still there, but Combeferre’s is gone, and Enjolras smiles to himself.

 

He waits a day, three days, a week. Every day he goes to the library and waits, but Feuilly never comes, and Combeferre’s copy of the encyclopedia never reappears.

 

He’s late, one day, after getting held up at school having gotten into a disagreement with his history teacher over Napoleon. And Combeferre’s encyclopedia is back, sitting primly exactly where Enjolras had placed it a week before. But when he picks it up, something glimmering falls out.

 

A bookmark. Delicately twisted wire, painted red and gold, and spelling out a name. _Enjolras._

 

“You like it?” Enjolras whips around to see Feuilly leaning against the bookshelf, grinning.

 

“I love it. I love it so much.” Enjolras is breathless, running his fingers all around the thin wire.

 

“I had to thank you somehow.” Feuilly walks towards him. “That was really great of you to do for  me.”

 

“Um,” says Enjolras, “hold that thought.” He takes out his phone and dials. “Hey, Combeferre? Can we talk about rescheduling meetings from now on?” Enjolras looks at Feuilly and smiles, clasping his shoulder. “I want to bring a new friend.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi at crazyinjune.tumblr.com :)


End file.
